And their “yes” may not be exactly possible, but I think they sometimes like to say “yes” now and ask for forgiveness later. I can’t really fault them…how many of us have done the same thing, thinking we would just figure it out later? I think we all have. But I digress.

Why we should say ‘yes'

When we feel that sales has oversold our solution we often think we have to go into the engagement saying ‘no’ and resetting expectations. And we think that we need to monitor scope – which we do. Unfortunately, we often think we need to go in saying ‘no’ constantly to client changes and requests – which we don’t. Here’s why….

The next installment in my “5 Reasons Why…” focuses on Insightly’s online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. Insightly provides customer relationship and project management software to small businesses worldwide. More than 550,000 users in 180 countries leverage Insightly’s cloud-based application to manage customer interactions, leads, proposals, sales opportunities and projects from any device at any time. Designed to work the way you work, I found Insightly is very easy to use, yet powerful and it includes integrations with Google Apps, Microsoft Outlook, Mailchimp, Evernote and more making it an extremely flexible integration into just about any organization. As I perused the Insightly offering, I narrowed the pluses down to these five key features to focus on for this review.

Opportunity Tracking and Project management.  The top reasons people turn to a CRM are organization, efficiency and sales. A business’s major use for a CRM is to manage their contact interactions and sales but what happens to when the product you sell is a service or that your business model revolves around project management, then what do you do? Hearing that this was a big issue, Insightly stepped in and created a CRM with project management integrated, which was the first of its kind. With opportunity tracking you can see incoming business as well as closed deals so you can predict revenue along with the ability to know if a customer is in need of a renewal. You can easily convert these opportunities to projects! With Insightly project management you can assign tasks to people and groups, track projects against milestone dates and receive notifications with reminders, tasks assigned and tasks that are completed.  This capability gives your business the full visibility to see customer journey, from first touch to sale to service received to make sure that nothing was missed and there are no inefficiencies in the process.  

Ease of use.  There are a lot of CRMs out there, and all claim to transform your business into an efficient sales machine. I can tell you from experience that you will not see these success metrics unless your CRM is fully utilized by your company. Insightly has created a system for small businesses that is easy to use and easy to manage so that adoption is fast.  Everyone can easily learn how to use Insightly and how to make it work for them. With this you will see productivity soar instead of getting lost in your CRM.

Contacts and Linking.  Managing contacts is a critical component of a CRM and I found it to be very easy with Insightly.  Unlike many CRM’s which only allow hierarchical relationships, Insightly developed an easy way to create a network of your contacts called linking which allows you to link multiple items to multiple items.  So for example, your contacts might have relationships with multiple companies -- maybe a former employee is not a supplier or a current customer is a referrer -- all this information is important for you to maintain your overall business relationships.  The Insightly interface allows you to create and view these links easily and so all the important contact information you need is at your fingertips. You can also assign tasks to yourself or other team members and have them linked to a contact, so no vital activity is missed.

Email.  Knowing that most people work from their email, you need to use an application that has this seamless integration between email and CRM so that all communications are easy accessible.  Insightly’s great integration with Google apps allows you to not only save an email into Insightly, but to create tasks, contacts, projects, opportunities or events all from your Google GMail. Same goes for Microsoft Outlook 2013 and Office 365. If you don’t use any of those particular email clients, Insightly provides you with an email link to forward any email to Insightly and it will link to the contact of that email address. It’s extremely simple.

Customization and Integration. Certain CRMs have different focuses on either different departments or verticals and are hard to customize. Insightly prides itself on being a general all purpose tracking system which allows you to make Insightly work for your business needs and requirements. Adding custom fields, custom categories, custom stages and more are easy with Insightly. Also Insightly has great integrations with apps like MailChimp, Quote Roller, Evernote, Zapier, and is constantly releasing new ones to give their customers the ability to seamlessly manage all their applications.  They are also working on an integration with Quickbooks Online (available later this year).  Since businesses are changing the way they work everyday why not have a system that is flexible yet powerful like Insightly.

Ready to See for Yourself?

Are you ready to check it out yourself?  You can watch a very informative video on the Insightly product offering and capabilities.  Next, stop by their pricing page to compare your options. You can also instantly signup for a free account and start using it today.

Your customer is critical. And from most project managers’ perspectives, that is the person sitting across from him at the table or the one on the other end of the phone on the status call. That’s right… that is the customer. But what about the customer’s ultimate end user? Where do they fit in? When is the end user part of the project? On many projects the end user is the one who needs the solution.

I ran across this quote and it troubles me – partly because it is often true and because we are all guilty sometimes of overlooking end users as a central point of reference and information for the project. Here it is… “A user is somebody who tells you what they want the day you give them what they asked for.” This can be taken to mean that the user often does a poor job telling us at first what they want and the gives us a better definition once the project is over and the solution doesn’t really meet their needs.

This one always gets me. You know the phrase…”If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Black and white, this or that, help or hindrance. I don’t really buy into it…there is nearly always an in between. And with project clients – albeit as a creative management project or a simple consulting engagement or whatever – I think it is the same. The client is nearly always a help as well as nearly always being some sort of hindrance. How can they be both? Easy. Just look back on some recent project engagements you’ve led or been involved in.

If the client is helping…aka, a friend…then that’s great. As long as that help is in the form of real help as opposed to the kind of help some project clients bestow upon the project manager in the form of micro-managing, extreme budget oversight, or even installing their own project manager on their side who sometimes tends to be a figurehead who gets in the way. True help, like decision-making, task engagement, knocking down barriers, efficient handling of issues and questions…those are very much appreciated.

In this next installment of the “5 Reasons Why…” review series we’re going to take a turn away from specific project management or task management tools and look at that subsection of a software or app development project that is often overlooked or ignored until it becomes a client issue.  I’ve experienced this on my own projects a couple of times – as a result of buried or incomplete requirements only to come to user acceptance testing (UAT) or deployment and find out that our solution does not meet the performance needs of the customer.  That can be on a $30,000 project and it can be on a $30 million project…neither should be ignored. 

Appvance is a company which offers the Appvance PerformanceCloud - an app performance testing platform that has the first true beginning-to-end load testing solution that can help ensure you are delivering what your customer needs.  It is the only Agile app performance testing platform that drives true beginning-to-end load and performance validation, and the company claims is up to 10X faster to develop and run tests than other tools. Mobile apps, social apps, HTML5 apps, corporate apps...they claim to be able to test them all. Let’s look at five key features that make this a must see solution for your app performance testing needs:

Faster testing = increased productivity.  The Appvance platform is the first 3rd generation automated test platform. There were a set of tools out around 1995, then another batch around 2005. Each generation a little better than the last. This is the first of a 3rd generation of tools, and that in itself makes it interesting to investigate. Based on some 3rd party data the company shared with me, your team will create and execute tests of modern apps 5X to 10X faster than Loadrunner or SOASTA or other older generation tools. A recent 3rd party study measured this productivity improvement and soon the company will complete the compilation of that data and release it. So, it appears real. And in my discussions with them, its what they set out to do. Talk to Appvance about it – experience the difference.

Full beginning to end testing.  The Appvance platform tests full beginning-to-end…from the presentation layer to the back end. Not simple protocol level tests (end to end) like other 1st gen and 2nd gen tools. That means real browsers fire up on thousands of servers to create load and meadure actual transaction times at the UX level…like what real users will see. Server stats integrated into reports alongside UX transaction times. No one else I have seen can ramp 100 to 10M real browsers, on local or remote machines instantly, to simulate actual users from beginning-to-end like Appvance.

uxAvatar technology.  Appvance’s patent-pending uxAvatar technology is a huge breakthrough. Modern apps today are client-side code heavy including Ajax, Javascript, Video elements etc. Appvance is the first to be able to fully engage all elements with advanced record and playback capabilities for functional and performance testing. Not simple recording of mouse movements. Instead they inject javascript into the browser under recording and watch and record the underlying javascript happenings. Now that’s pretty cool. Testers can create complex tests, often in minutes and often with no coding whatsoever. Create dozens of use cases, place into complex test scenarios, and store as a test ready to run. Re-use them from functional tests to performance tests to APM by dragging in database elements where needed, for example for login credentials. It’s truly a new way to think about automated testing and makes you wonder why anyone would still use older tools.

Fully Agile.  Appvance is fully Agile Integrated from the ground up. You can create Agile stories and integrate with Jenkins, Cloudbees, Rally, Hudson etc. so that your tests run automatically each time code is checked in. The platform seamlessly generates reports into the repository each time. It’s an agile world…and they designed this platform to help you move to agile workflows quickly.

Their cloud or yours.  The company lets you use the platform in their cloud or behind your firewall. Many others give you only one choice which isn’t the one you need.

Support.  While I guess this is number 6…it’s a hot button with me for all vendors. It’s no question that with any software or service technical support is always the next concern beyond product performance. This is a big complaint in the testing tools world with larger vendors offering poor support. Appvance provides 24-hour support, multi-day upfront training, and 24-hour turnaround on patches or connectors for new constructs. No one is more flexible to work with and responsive to your needs to keep your team productive.

My Summary

I have watched this space for many years and while I know there are experts out there who love their old tools, I think it’s ripe for disruption. Why?  It really gets down to ease of use and QA productivity. Modern apps are hard t test fully. Appvance claims they have solved that and improved speed and ease of use substantially over others. That means that there is no excuse to skip performance testing in your software project…to find out where it breaks or to improve response times. Either way…leads to happier users. So I think Appvance is certainly worth a closer look. 

They have several helpful and informative data sheets available on the Appvance site, as well as platform comparison discussions, and tutorials and videos.  I suggest you request a demo and free trial through the contact form on the products page to see for yourself.

Let’s get one thing straight.  I firmly believe all projects should be subject to formal weekly project status meetings with the project customer.  It’s the best way to stay in control, keep the customer engaged, keep the team focused, and disseminate the right information to the right people on a regular and timely basis.  Problems never become too big before being discussed formally as a group.  And it’s a good weekly reset point for everyone on the project.  Regular weekly meetings help keep customer satisfaction at its highest level.

However, I do understand that not every project actually requires a weekly status meeting.  Certainly the project team should be meeting at least weekly and likely should be having some daily communication. But if customer involvement is minimal and the project is short term and straightforward and not experiencing any critical issues, then less frequent customer meetings may be all that is needed.

We try to be nice, we try to accommodate every need and whim. And we try to always stay on course, on time and on task. But sometimes it just doesn’t happen. We stray from the schedule, we run into many unforeseen issues (maybe our fault, maybe something beyond our control). Or maybe we run way over the expected budget. As project managers we are trying to please everyone all of the time – and that just can’t happen.

But most of all we want our clients to be happy with how the project is going. And once in a while we lead those projects with clients that we let down time and time again for any one of the reasons mentioned above. Or possibly dozens of other possible scenarios. Does this sound all too familiar? If so, what do you do? How do you take a creative project gone awry with a very unhappy client and begin to turn things around? What if the client is ready to pull the plug on the whole engagement? You can’t let that happen!

As much as we would like to think that we are free and clear to run our project and determine its outcome….the reality is that is not true. Every project – really no matter what the type of project, what industry the project is in, and what level or type of technology is utilized in the solution – has three major constraints. These are always going to be budget, time, and quality. There really is no way to avoid these.

I have never seen any project manager blessed with an unlimited budget. Likewise, I have never heard of or witnessed a project customer say, “Take as long as you want with this project.” It just doesn’t happen. And quality…well…I think we all understand that one. The end solution needs to work…needs to solve a problem or need. Otherwise, it isn’t really a successfully completed project…it’s just work that was done and time that was wasted.

I would like to think that as the project is winding down I know whether my customer is satisfied with the implementation or whether they feel there have been some issues and concerns. I will also be the first to admit that I have been surprised both ways…so it is never a certainty.

Staying on top of the project via status reporting and the project schedule is critical to keeping the project on track and keeping customer satisfaction high. However, there are always other factors that come into play – some you can control and some you never can. Some that you do have a lot of control over as a factor in stakeholder satisfaction include the softer skills of communication, customer service, and problem resolution. And really, as the project winds down you can hope you know how your customer feels about the project – or you can do the wise thing and go ahead and ask the tough questions. It’s best if you can gauge this throughout the engagement – but that isn’t always possible. However, it is definitely a very good idea – almost necessary, in my opinion – to regroup afterwards and discuss this topic with the customer and various stakeholders post engagement.

I can’t say personally that I have always viewed project management as a customer service oriented career path.  I saw it as a more methodical, mechanical process of managing schedules, tasks, and team members and reporting…oh yes…lots of reporting…of project status to anyone and everyone who mattered. 

The reality of it though, is that it truly is very customer service oriented.  And I am glad that it is…even though I didn’t really see myself as a customer service type person.  Am I really nice enough and tolerant enough to be that type of person?  Well, I guess 20+ years in the field says that yes, I am.  But at least we don’t have to take too much abuse…its not that type of customer service.  But it is about making the customer happy and keeping them that way…because that is a key element to project success.